1. UAPP 702: Research Design for Urban & Public Policy Babbie, The Practice of Social Research, Chaps.1-2
Danilo Yanich
School of Public Policy & Administration
Center for Community Research & Service
University of Delaware

2. Chapter 1: Knowing things
Not so much about what we know, but HOW we know
perception
Most of what we know is matter of belief and agreement
“Everybody knows that…”
But everybody “knew” the world was flat once
Other way of knowing…direct experience, observation
But when experience conflicts with agreement…
There is good chance that we’ll surrender our experience in favor of agreement
Methodology: special approach to inquiry
The science of finding out
How social scientists find out about human social life

3. Errors in inquiry Inaccurate observations Overgeneralization
Most daily observations are casual… not precise
Scientific observation is a conscious activity
Ex: instructor’s clothes; football toss
Overgeneralization
Assuming that a few similar events are evidence of a general pattern
Scientists guard against this by REPLICATION of inquiry
Selective observation
We assume a pattern exists then focus on future events that fit the pattern
Illogical reasoning
“Exception that proves the rule”
WHAT?...how can that be logical?

4. Foundations of social science: logic and observation
Theory, not philosophy or belief
Social theory has to do with what is, not with what should be...not so for many centuries.
Science cannot settle debates about values
Social regularities
Social affairs do exhibit a high degree of regularity, despite exceptions
Aggregates, not individuals
Regularities that social scientists study generally reflect the collective behavior of many individuals
A Variable Language
Attributes: characteristics or qualities that describe an object
Variables: logical groupings of attributes

5. Variables & Attributes: Some Common Social Concepts (Babbie Fig 1-4, p
Female
Age
Upper class
African American
Young
Occupation
Social class
Gender
Race/Ethnicity
Plumber

6. Variables are sets of related values or attributes (Babbie Fig 1-4, p
Variables are sets of related values or attributes (Babbie Fig 1-4, p.15) cont.
Variable
Attribute
Age
Young, middle-aged, old
Gender
Female, male
Occupation
Plumber, lawyer, data-entry clerk…
Race/Ethnicity
African-American, Asian, Caucasian, Latino…
Social Class
Upper, middle, lower…

7. The Hardest Hit Was… which variable is operative for conclusion
The Hardest Hit Was… which variable is operative for conclusion? (sidebar, p.16)
Marin
Santa Cruz
Businesses destroyed
$15.0M
$56.5M
People killed 5 22
People injured
379 50
People displaced
370
400
Homes destroyed 28
135
Homes damaged
2,900
300 25 10
Businesses damaged
800 35
Private damages
$65.1M
$50.0M
Public damages

8. Illustration of relationship between two variables

9. Independent and Dependent Variables
Two concepts are implicit in causal or deterministic models
A dependent variable “depends” on an independent variable
That is, a change in the independent variable will produce a change in the dependent variable

10. Education and Anti-Gay Prejudice Table 1-2, p.18
Level of education
Percent saying that homosexuality is always wrong
Less than HS graduate 72
HS graduate 62
Junior college 56
Bachelor’s degree 44
Graduate degree 30

11. Dialectics of Social Research: Idiographic and Nomothetic Explanations
Fully understand what happened in a particular instance
Scope of the explanation is limited to the case at hand
Nomothetic
Seeks to explain a class of situations, rather than a single one
Seeks to explain “economically” using one or a few explanatory factors
Settles for a partial explanation rather than a full explanation
Might qualify causal statements with “usually” or “other things being equal”, etc.

12. Dialectics of Social Research: Inductive and Deductive Theory
Reasoning that moves from the particular to the general...from…
1. a set of observations to…
2. the discovery of a pattern that represents some degree of order among all the given events
Deductive
Reasoning that moves from the general to the specific...from…
1. a pattern that might be logically or theoretically expected to…
2. observations that test whether the pattern actually occurs

13. Dialectics of Social Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Most simply put, difference is the distinction between numerical and non-numerical data
Every observation is qualitative at the outset
We quantify it to make it easier to aggregate, compare and summarize the data
Use Babbie example re: age, . p 24 (“older than his years”)
Both types of data are useful and legitimate in social research

14. Pure & Applied Research
Knowledge for knowledge’s sake
Example of Egyptian sociologist who wrote about regimes who groom sons for power---NOT allowed
Different circumstances in policy research in SPPA, but effort is directed at informing public policy

15. Ch2: Paradigms, Theory & Social Research
“You can observe a lot just by watching.”
----Yogi Berra, 20th century philosopher
But, if only observe patterns, we will fail
Need to offer logical explanations for the patterns
Or the regularities we observe may be mere flukes
Enter theories
Prevent us from being taken in by flukes
Suggest other possibilities for the patterns we observe
Direct research efforts to most likely places

16. Social Paradigms Paradigm
The fundamental models or frames of reference we use to organize our observations and reasoning
Difficult to recognize because they are so implicit…
Seem more like “the way things are” than one possible point of view among many
Ultimately, paradigms are not true or false…
They are only more or less useful

17. Macrotheory and Microtheory
A distinction that cuts across many paradigms
Macrotheory
Study of society at large or large portions of it
Ex: struggle between economic classes; interrelations among major institutions
Deals with large, aggregate entities of society
Microtheory
Deals with issues of social life at the levels of individuals and small groups
Ex: dating behavior; jury deliberations

18. Some social science paradigms
Early Positivism
Auguste Comte identified society as a phenomenon that could be studied scientifically
Comte postulated three stages of history
Theological---religious paradigms explained reality
Metaphysical---natural laws replaced God as explanation
Positivist---science would replace natural law in which knowledge would be based on observation rather than on belief or logic alone

19. Some social science paradigms, p.2
Social Darwinism
application of Darwin’s process of natural selection to social affairs
Ex: Journey from hunter/gather tribes to complex, industrial societies seen as “fitter” forms of society
Conflict paradigm
social behavior best be seen as a product of conflict

20. Some social science paradigms, p.3
Symbolic interactionism
human interactions revolve around use of language and other systems
Ethnomethodology
an attempt to make sense of the one’s life experiences
People create their realities and social structure through their actions

21. Some social science paradigms, p.4
Structural Functionalism
view of society as a social system with parts carrying out particular functions
Feminist paradigm
calling attention to aspects of social life not revealed in other paradigms…
particularly gender differences and their relation to the rest of social organization
Critical race theory
looks at social world based on race awareness & racial justice

22. Rational Objectivity Reconsidered
Asch experiment (fig 2-1, p. 42)
Six subjects are to pick line that matches the first line
Obvious right answer but other subjects give “wrong” answers
The experiment is about one subject and getting that subject to alter the answer to conform to an obviously wrong answer.
Excellent experiment to show that reality is a matter of communication and agreement

23. Rational Objectivity Reconsidered, p.2
Despite inescapable subjectivity of our experience
we are “hard-wired” to seek agreement on what is really “real”...what is objectively so
Whenever we find a common ground in our subjective experiences, we say we are dealing with objective reality.
From 17th to mid-20th century, belief in an objective reality independent of individual perceptions dominated science...
not as a useful paradigm, but as THE TRUTH
But ideal of objectivity conceals as much as it reveals...
In the past what was regarded as objective reality in Western social science was actually an agreement primarily among middle-class European men.
Portrayal by early anthropologists of native tribes as savages rather than looking at their own native logic.

24. Rational Objectivity Reconsidered, p.3
Critical realism
define reality as that which can be seen to have an effect on society
prejudice, loyalty, etc.
W.I. Thomas…
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”
Tiger vs chair

25. Elements of Social Theory
Law: universal generalization about classes of facts
Ex: law of gravity—bodies are attracted to each other in proportion to their mass and in inverse proportion to their distance
No social scientific laws that claim universal certainty
Theory: a systematic explanation for observations that relate to a particular aspect of social life...
For example someone might offer a theory of juvenile delinquency, prejudice, homelessness, political revolution

26. Elements of Social Theory, p.2
Proposition: specific conclusions about the relationships among concepts that are derived from axiomatic groundwork
Hypothesis: a specified testable expectation about empirical reality that follows from a more general proposition
Research is designed to test hypotheses
Null hypothesis suggests that there is NO relationship among the variables under study

27. Traditional model of science
Theory
Operationalization
Specification of the exact operations involved in measuring a variable
For the researcher testing an hypothesis, the meaning of variables is exactly and only what the operational definition specifies
Must be specified with clarity in a way to make observation precise and rigorous
Observation
Systematic and rigorous gathering of data to test the hypothesis